VanCleef & Arpels on the summer night

He had studied political science at Yale University, and he had come to Tunis to visit an acquaintance of his father, who was the US ambassador. He had stayed by mere chance – for the sake of improving his health and in order to overcome some traumatic experience of his own. He was living for his soul and was paying for it: life is never a fairytale, whether you’re living in Manhattan or in Sokolniky. He had studied Arabic at some time in his childhood, in Jordan, where his family had lived for about three years. There he was, the oldest son of a billionaire, and he was interested in me. He was the kind of man you dreamt about! But I didn’t think of him in this way. Anyway, we were afraid of our supervisors. And he certainly was one of their chief targets, making me a target by association. You couldn’t get off without show downs, which was exactly what happened next.

– Do you really think, my dear, that we will let you flirt with Americans? – Comrade Alabyan asked me, having called me to his office on the first floor of our Embassy.

I felt dizzy, as though I were on the carousel in Gorky park.

– He will try to hire you, and as soon as you come to your senses, you will jump off the cliff near the walls of Carthage. You are not only a fool, but you are also ready to endanger all of your relatives.

I saw black dots. His dumb-witted speech registered in waves in my mind, like Ayvazovsky’s pictures.

– Well, tell me, then. I’m not joking. – He made a strict and haughty face which made my tongue feel numb.

– What should I tell you, Alexander Eduardovich? Are your asking me about Peter Kent? – I whispered.

– Is there also some John? – asked the secretary of the Party Organization.

– He studies in our group in Grammar. Alicia is also in the group. She is an American too. Nobody is hiring me, nobody has asked me any suspicious questions, – I said in a horrible, hoarse voice.

– You should not be making contact! – retorted comrade Alabyan. – This is your final warning! Next time, you will be arrested and flown back to Moscow. You should not even borrow a pen from them! Is that clear? You’d be better to write with your fingers! The less you hang about at the university, the more soundly you can sleep. We’ve spoilt you anyway – you have made a bordello out of your apartment. I should also deal with that other guy of yours, Pekarsky. You have got totally out of hand! Come here!

– Where? – I stammered, almost fainting.

– Come here!

I came up to the table, at which he was sitting.

– Come nearer!

My legs were numb, made from foam, plastic, wood – or whatever material they turn to on such occasions. I remember that he unzipped his fly, and then I finally fainted for real.

I choked with water and coughed.

– What’s the matter, Sonia? – asked Sergey, frightened.

– I just choked, sorry. Nothing serious… everything’s ok.

There were even more people in the restaurant by then. All the tables were occupied. It was noisy, the dishes were clinking. This place, ‘Pushkin’, is really interesting. It’s a crazy restaurant! Probably one of the best in Moscow. And it’s as busy as a beehive, even at 1 am.

A waiter wearing an apron came in with a tray, on which was a bottle of French champagne and a bouquet of white roses.

– Our guests have sent these to you. Welcome! I will put the flowers in a vase and bring them back to the table, if you like.

I stared at Sergey in astonishment. He was smiling.

– Did you do this?

– No, not me, – answered Sergey, still smiling.

– Which guests? – I asked the waiter.

– At that table over there. – He indicated a table at the far end of the hall.

I turned round. What a day it was! An older, slimmer Pete was approaching me. He was followed by Pekarsky, who had hardly changed at all (he wasn’t even bald), dressed in a yellow American-style tie.

“There are so many of them, and I am alone”, – The thought crossed my overwhelmed mind.

4

Using his status in Tunis Pekarsky got acquainted with the local bourgeoisie and political elite, two groups which are generally very closely connected in such countries. A family-member’s political success entailed immediate business success for all his relatives, however distant, and greatly contributed to the prosperity of his friends and acquaintances. It is quite easy to guess at the motives of Ilya’s actions, but whether or not his strategy was successful I cannot say for sure. Notwithstanding his relative youth, he had some authority among the Consulate representatives, and they allowed him to do a lot of things which were prohibited for others. They were surely taking into account his father’s contacts and long-term diplomatic activity in Western Europe, and in my opinion, also the connections of his maternal uncle, who was a professor of physics. And what wonderful son he was! Prince of the dreams of fellow Komsomol students and young teachers. At that time he was the embodiment of a member of a high-ranking family of Soviet princes and naturally, he knew it well enough.

I remember that he had become close friends with Suad, a business woman in her fifties and the wife of some minister of education or of agriculture – I am not sure which. She was very fond of her two sons, handsome, lazy guys who made active use of the family finances. Her husband was a politician busy with his career; they saw each other rarely, and had not held any special attraction for each other for many years. She was the owner of a villa in Sousse, which was occasionally occupied by her children: one of the sons sometimes stayed there with his Moroccan wife and his little son, the other, the most handsome man of the whole family, would entertain there his numerous French girlfriends. At that time a man could catch a lot of French girls, especially in spring. They came there to get jobs in the hotels or tourist agencies, or simply to look for opportunity; sometimes, actors and singers also came to live with him. Russian and Ukrainian women were not yet able to travel about with the ease of these French girls, and so a similar field of activity for our mademoiselles was practically uncultivated.

At the beginning of June, Suad decided to celebrate her birthday and invited Pekarsky to the private Swiss club on Karkana Island. Ilya said that he would come with friends, and invited me and Sergey to go with him. They were probably both leading me on – for all I know, Sergey might have been in cahoots with Pekarsky – but it certainly wasn’t chance that led them to ask me to join them. Refusal was out of the question; I was sick and tired of the limits imposed on our contact with others, and of being confined to certain rooms and places. It was even forbidden to go to the cinema or to the beach. Sometimes they organized trips to the seaside in the old UAZ cars, packed with people and without any air conditioning. Having made this trip once, squashed into the car along with wives of the officials of the second delegation, listening to their artless talk about sales and the latest knitting pattern (in Tunis they sold cheap mohair, and these women diligently knitted clothes for their children and husbands to wear during the long and frosty Russian winters), I had firmly resolved not to waste any more of my spare time like that. You couldn’t even spread out a towel more than two meters from the party, or to plunge into the water without having told your worried neighbors where you were going. On top of this you had to answer questions such as ‘Do you still miss your Motherland?’, and on the way back, sing ‘Katiusha’ in unison (I have never had anything against the military songs – at Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s concert devoted to V-day, at which he had performed only military songs, I had felt tears standing in my eyes along with many other people present). The whole consulate staff liked the song about ‘Gena the Crocodile’, and the Russian song ‘A beauty from Moldova’. And if you do not like it, ask yourself what’s the matter and try to make yourself believe that you still enjoy it. I had always thought cordially about my city – my mother, my father, the Institute, my childhood friends were all there, and in your twenties you still have a lot of illusions and a lot of angst, not fully expressed and experienced. Why should your irresistible wish to see the world be considered a crime and why should you surround yourself with people, who drink vodka in order to be patriotic – is that really a humane approach? In such an environment a trip to some private Swiss club on some island was as good as a winning lucky lottery ticket. And I didn’t care, whether that would tell on the rest of my life. One month was left until our return to Moscow.

Примечания

1

“If we want things to stay the same, things wi1l have to constantly improve” – the maxim of Italian writer Tomazi di Lampeduza (1896-1957).

2

Karandash (Карандаш) – a Russian word which means “pencil”.

Конец бесплатного ознакомительного фрагмента.